| Posted: 27 October 2008 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | 5
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"Everyone - from the Clinton Administration to the UN to western Europe - was convinced that Iraq had WMDs because Hussein allowed the world to think that"
No. The head of the weapons inspection unit said quite explicitly that despite Saddam's evasiveness they had practically ruled it out. They just needed him to comply fully with their inspection program to verify it. And when pressure was brought to bear, Saddam finally caved. And Bush said "too late!" and went in anyway.
France pushed for more reliable info. What did they get? "Ooh, the french are cowards who'll roll over for anybody." (Somebody needs to re-read the history books.)
Most of Nato were convinced that the "evidence" of WMDs presented was unreliable. They kept pushing for more info, but all they got was "trust us". The "dozen european countries" in Iraq? Norway is one of them, but the mission of our military is peacekeeping and humanitarian aid. We're not part of the "mission" or "coalition" in Iraq, and that applies to several other "allies" in Iraq. The coalition of the willing? US, UK and a few smaller nations.
And part of the initial attraction for the coalition? The US declaring it was going to make a profit on this war by making the Iraqi's pay for it with their oil and saying that they were canceling all Iraqi trade agreements with those who didn't participate in the coalition and handing new contracts out only to coalition members.
Gee, a campaign like that would surely only attract idealists, not mercenaries.
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